


Body of Horror

by GreyRaven09



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Body Horror, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Tinker Taylor Hebert | Skitter | Weaver
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-15 22:02:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28820430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreyRaven09/pseuds/GreyRaven09
Summary: Taylor always wanted to be a hero, but she's found there are too many obstacles holding her back. As if her impatience and rebellious nature weren't bad enough, her power provided things like the disposable laser-goose. And there was no way that the PR Department would let that fly. Perhaps she wasn't cut out for the hero life after all?
Comments: 18
Kudos: 64





	1. 1

"…the children, just shoot. Doesn't matter your aim, just shoot. You see one lying on the ground? Shoot the little bitch twice more to be sure. We give them no chances to be clever or lucky, understand?"

They were going to kill _kids_?

Why was I even out here? I didn't have anything worth mentioning in the way of equipment yet. My power could only go so far on scraps, and pickings were slim in a city like this. Ug, if it weren't for the Trio I'd not be out tonight, I'd not have heard the ABB, I'd not have to get into a fight.

And with _Lung_? On my first night? What the hell kind of thing had I done in a past life to deserve this?

And yet… _kids_. I couldn't just let this go. I had to stop them… somehow.

I flicked my fingers, snug in the haptic control glove I was wearing, like an old school power glove. Throwing out commands for my… well, 'abominations' is the only kind word I have for them. Just my luck to be cursed with a power that is only good for making monstrosities.

A window opened on my hacked together visor, showing a birds eye view of the area. If only that had been a metaphor. I literally had a camera feed from the augmented pigeon that was flying above our heads. Icons appeared over the living targets, marking them as hostiles, showing estimated threat levels, equipment, and, awkwardly, their projected value in replacement parts.

I should probably feel more worried that I didn't find that last bit horribly disturbing…

A half dozen rats, that had been following me from the shadows, moved to encircle the group below. Their bodies were bulbous and distended from the cocktail of chemicals they now produced, a cocktail that would react extremely explosively once the command was given. They would prove a good opening move, causing chaos and allowing my other units to attack with a hefty advantage.

The trio of dogs I had been lucky to nab slunk up to the edge of the alley, a flicker of light revealed the dull and rusted metal that had been fused into their bodies. Weaponry systems that barely counted according to my power; it had felt surly when I had made them, if I had to guess I'd say it wanted better quality materials. Well sorry power, but I don't have access to that, maybe if the Protectorate could get past the horror of my creations, they'd be willing to fund me and provide quality parts.

No, bad Taylor. No stalling, you can't afford to let these assholes get away!

I flicked my fingers again, calling up the PRT's hotline. I paused a moment as the first ring went through, gulped, then flicked my fingers again and sent the rats forward.

A second and third ring, and then the line picked up.

"PRT Emergency Hotline, please state the nature of your emergency." A bored female operator responded, tired, robotic, a small device could be implanted in the neck that would administer adrenaline, caffeine, and a half dozen other compounds as, and when, needed to keep the user operating at maximum efficiency for hours…

No bad power! Not now.

A heartbeat had passed, my power could provide flashes of insight, ideas, designs in a fraction of a moment, but it always left a headache. I would have preferred one that took its time, instead of brutally mind-raping me with ideas.

"There's a group of ABB, with Lung, near the Docks. Corner of…" I was cut short from rattling off the location when the first of the rats launched itself towards the nearest gangster and let it's explosive innards do their job.

Ow.

My ears are ringing, and I'm lying on my back looking up at the building I had been on. I squeeze my eyes shut, and then open them again, and the world is still blurry. But I can see the feed from my pigeon, I think I miscalculated the rats.

I don't think it ever occurred to me that the rats would be carrying tinker explosives inside them. I think… I need to make sure I don't keep them inside in the future. Wait, no, focus Taylor.

Lung. Lung was there. I blinked my eyes clear again, and looked closely at the now cracked visor. There, that was where the first rat went off… and those other five craters. Shit that is _definitely_ more than a little flashbang-in-a-rat. Next time I won't do calculations at school, it's hard to tell if you've carried the one when your notes are soaked in BerryBlast Soda. And looking at this mess, I am fairly sure I didn't carry more than one number.

There… is nothing left of the gangsters who were caught in the blast. Oh crap. Oh man, oh crap, the PRT is going to be so pissed off with me. Fuck!

I push myself slowly, agonizingly, to my feet. Looking up, I wonder how the hell I survived that fall, maybe Murphy didn't hate me as much as he seemed to. Oh god, did I really just think that?

Standing up straight, it finally clicks, other than the ringing in my ears, the street is eerily quiet… there should be car alarms, or sirens going off. Am… am I deaf now? I flick my fingers, and mercy of mercies my visor responds, even if it's a bit sluggish. The system alerts swap from an audio stream into my earpiece which, now that I think about it, is missing, and starts scrolling past as a text stream on the left side of my visor.

Oh boy, that's a lot of critical failures, and look, the one emergency regenerative implant I had managed to make had overloaded and died. I'd need to make a new one, but boy were those parts expensive. Well, looks like I know why I didn't die, my implant died to save my poor spine. I'll have to give it a funeral.

I staggered to the mouth of the alley, where my dogs still waited. The beasts were half machine, and honestly, they creeped me the fuck out. Imagine giving a toddler the chance to play Legos with living animals. Some of what I'd done to the poor things was horrific. But when you only have a scalpel, every problem looks like it needs more invasive surgery.

Peeking around the corner, and I didn't see any immediate threats. Did I manage to kill Lung? Shit that'd be a badass first night out. Maybe the PRT wouldn't immediately throw me in the Birdcage… no, who am I kidding, one look at one of those pooches would see me with a Kill Order, no doubts.

Pushing myself off from the corner, and walking much like a zombie into the middle of the road, I approached the mess I had caused. Ew, was that a spleen? Looks like those gangsters were a little less intact now than when last I saw them. This was going to get me in trouble, I just knew it. And the Trio didn't even have to do anything, they could have just left me alone and I'd have gotten myself a Kill Order without any help.

I slapped my face and screamed. Which only reminded me that I couldn't hear anything but the ringing. I stopped screaming, and looked down, thoroughly unimpressed with myself. Next rat I enhance gets a cryogenic mix. I mean, I can't even use these as spare parts anymore.

Oh hey, that guy is still in one piece.

And he's getting up.

Oh… fuck you too Murphy!

I turned and ran, if Lung had survived that, there was nothing I was going to be able to do against him. I could only hope I could get away and hide. I flicked my fingers as I stumbled over debris, sending my dogs off to attack. They wouldn't last, that's for sure.

Huh, I could smell burnt flesh. Was that the dogs? Was that Lung?

Oh. It's me.

I slammed face down into the asphalt as Lung tackled me to the ground. His aura of heat and fire licking at my costume and burning my flesh. I… can't feel that right. Shit, that's got to be nerve damage. A neural-regenerative mix could be brewed using the womb of a living animal as an incubator, so it wouldn't have to be permanent loss of sensation at least.

Suddenly I can see more than just asphalt. Right. Lung's still here! His face is covered in small metallic scales that are pushing out of his flesh. Replacing it, covering it. A subdermal reactive armor that can… No!

His hand around my throat means I can't breathe, and he's holding me up high enough that my feet are dangling, unable to get purchase against the ground. He's speaking, saying something. Probably cursing me out for being a shitty excuse for a tinker. Probably calling me a dumb bitch who should never have left her mothers womb. You know, just putting to words exactly what I'm currently thinking about myself.

Wait, what the fuck is that.

Something gigantic slams into Lung, something gloriously enhanced. And I go flying, smacking into the sidewalk, and rolling until I hit the wall of the nearby building. Yay, I could still feel some of that. Oh and look, the Pigeon has a better view than me.

Hellhound is here, her three giant dinosaur-dog-things are here too. Two with riders, and the one that crashed into Lung, and now has him in it's jaws and is tossing him about. That looks painful, and that beast could do with pneumatic enhancements to it's jaw, then it could have sliced right through Lung's chest.

One of the other dog things jumps down, and one of the riders, the pretty one with the motorcycle helmet, drops off it. He drags me up onto the beast, even as black smog flows out of him, encircling us, and cutting off my signal to the pigeon. The last thing I clearly notice from that feed is the scorched wrecks of my own augmented dogs. Well, apparently they did nothing to help against Lung.

I flick my fingers, and send out the emergency signal. A massively overpowered pulse of radio that should tell… well only the pigeon is left, so only him, to attack. See, I didn't want to be in a position where my creations could be separated from me. That didn't seem like a safe proposition, so I made a last ditch command for the neural control chip that I implanted in each of them. It would send them on a frenzied assault of whomever had me captive, and anyone still marked as hostile.

I hoped that the poor pigeon would make a valiant last stand against Lung, but mostly I hoped its body wouldn't be left for the PRT to link to me.

Wait, didn't I put that tranquilizer into the pigeon?

]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[

I'm not sure how much time has passed, but I am now fairly sure that one of the error messages means that I have brain damage, and another means that my ears no longer exist as functional equipment.

I can fix both of those, but that's only if the myriad of other injuries and the rather extensive surface burns, especially those around my neck, don't kill me first. I really wish I'd left a letter for Dad in my bedroom. But you can't put a loose eyeball back in the socket after you stick a camera in there… wait what the hell is wrong with that metaphor.

Christ I could use a drink.

The darkness swirls away, and I see that I'm still on one of those giant lizard-doggos. The visor sends out pings now that it can communicate again, but I get nothing in response. Oddly, not even my home server… well it's a bunny that's doing time as a server, responds. Shit, that emergency signal must have made even Sir RackUnit attack. That wasn't intentional, I'd need to file a bug report with HQ.

I laughed, or I think I did. Hard to tell when you can't hear.

A girl with blonde hair, and green eyes behind a purple mask that doesn't really cover enough, leans down over me. She's saying something, but all I can think of is how I could make use of those teeth. Those are some shiny-ass teeth. Does she bleach them?

I'm unceremoniously lifted up and taken inside. This is either a safe-house or, if they are really stupid, their lair. I tried to pay attention, but I am fairly sure that flashing light means I am experiencing large levels of blood loss. It'd give me a chance to test out the synth-blood serum I have at home. Too bad we weren't there. I try to tell the girl where she can go to get it, but… my body is really fucked up, and I am fairly sure she just heard gurgling.

Okay, when I'm out of here, I am going to make a cure for tinnitus. I have new respect for those people who suffer from it.

I'm thrown down onto a couch, and I am fairly sure the group is arguing. The crossdressing one with the poofy shirt sits down right beside my head, sending a shock of pain through my body. What an ass. Oh hey, and he doesn't give a shit that I am dying right here, he's going to play some PlayStation. I bet he has mommy issues.

Hey, it's the girl again, the blonde. I'm sure there's a joke here, about a disabled Frankenstein and his hot nurse, but I can't think of it right now. She has a container of first aid stuff. Bandages and Tylenol, girl that isn't going to help you. I need a trauma team. Or an infant monkey that I can render down into a serum that should have me back in tip-top health in a week or so of bed rest.

There's a phone out, and it looks like she might be getting help from someone on the other end. Maybe she has a friend who is a doctor. Maybe she's calling 911.

I yawn, or try to, it's hard. Even thinking is hard. Fairly sure I am dying right now.

Well, I did better than I expected against Lung at least.

Maybe they can put that on my tombstone. "Exceeded Expectations. Didn't die instantly."

]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[

I blink, then blink again, the light is bright and harsh, like hospital lights. Only I think these are cheap knock-offs, and that's telling as hospitals don't exactly splurge on lights.

I try to lever myself upright, and pause when I notice that my visor is gone, I look down, and... Hey that bitch stole my clothes!

"Hey, you. You're finally awake." Hallelujah, it's a miracle, abomination girl can hear again!

"Are you even able to hear me? Say something if you can." The girl one, with the blonde hair.

"Something." Ug, even speaking hurts.

"Well, that's something I guess. I think we owe you an explanation about what happened, but I'd say getting you to a doctor, and keeping you alive at risk to our own necks, counts for everything else." You owed me for something? That can't be right, the only person who owes me anything is Emma, and I'll collect from that bitch, oh yes indeed I will.

Fingers snapped in front of my face. "Oi! Stop zoning out, I'm trying to talk to you here!" She's angry at me, frustration looks good on her face, sorta like a pain enhancement module would look good on Emma's forehead.

"Ug, there's no way I can talk to you right now. I'll leave a phone number, and you can call me at that when you are ready to find out what happened." Yeah, I am frustrating to deal with, I know, bitch. "Fuck knows if you'll actually remember this though." She muttered the last, but I still heard it. Yay, my hearing must not have been entirely fucked. That'll make it easier to fix everything.

She turns and swears too quietly for me to properly make out, and writes a number onto a piece of paper. Then she turns and leaves. Speaking of, I should make like a leaf and cannibalize some chlorophyll… wait that's not how that one goes.

I push myself into a sitting position, noting the excessive number of bandages, and the tightness of my, clearly still burnt, skin. This is going to be a hard one to explain to dad. Wonder if he even noticed I was gone.

]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[

I checked on the assets of mine that had been left beside the bed. My haptic control glove was entirely intact, and so was most of the control circuit. The visor was a total write off though. Unfortunately my 'costume' such as it was, had been entirely written off and tossed. But they had left me some old cast-offs. Hell I am fairly sure I still had some of my suit stuck in my wounds, it itched like it.

It took me much longer than I am proud of to get dressed, and by the time I had the local doctor, well that might be too high a title for that guy, had dropped past and given me a bag of drugs. The dosage of such was written on each bottle, and he'd told me that the ones who brought me here had paid for everything before leaving.

So I was scot free to head home.

Too bad that took me four hours.

]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[

It'd been well over a day since the fight, and Dad wasn't home when I got home. Odd, since it was early morning now. And that means I'd been missing for at least 24 hours. Surely there'd be a report with the cops, and I'd be labeled a person of interest with the PRT, since I disappeared at the same time as Lung got blown to hell.

Oh, and I was a girl, and so was their mystery caller, surely they'd piece it together. Wait, did I ever hang up that call? Does the PRT know what Lung had tried to say to me? Oh god that was embarrassing, I'd never live it down if they associated it with me.

I stumbled down the steps into the basement, where I'd made my little lab, flicking the lights on as I went down. I'd need to make a serum to heal me up, and something to inject it in. And probably I'd need to start enhancing a new pigeon, maybe wire it up with enhanced hearing systems, and put a cochlear implant into my own head so I could hear even after being hit by explosives.

Not being able to hear was a right problem.

I looked up from my lab tools, and noted that the sun had moved. I looked at the clock, and clearly I'd been here for a few hours. Grimacing, I glared at the tools and shook my finger at them.

"I'm supposed to get warning before I drop into one of those phases. Asshole power," I muttered.

Tinker Fugues, not even once.

But it seems I'd managed to get the Serum made, I swiftly planted the needle against the skin of my neck, feeling for the right vein, something my power didn't really assist with. It's not a super-nurse power after all.

"Here goes nothing, hopefully this doesn't make everything taste like nails again."

Then with a sharp pull of the injector I send a few CCs of liquid wizardry into my veins, and shiver at the chill it sends down my neck. Now just to crawl upstairs to bed, and I'd be right as rain in the morning. Hopefully.

Oh these stairs are awfully comfortable. I'll just have a short nap here, and continue on later…

]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[

_[ Excerpt from PRT post-incident report. ]_

"The Parahuman known as Lung, and an unknown number of unpowered members of the Parahuman Gang known as the Asian Bad Boyz (ABB), were engaged by a suspected new trigger Parahuman late evening of April 10th 2011.

A PRT Operator received a call from an unknown individual at 2237 hours, who reported the group, and was cut off by a number of explosions shortly before the call disconnected.

Protectorate Parahuman Asset Armsmaster called in explosions near his position at the Brockton Bay Docks at 2238 hours.

PRT forces rerouted to the area after Armsmaster reported the presence of Hostile Parahuman Hellhound, member of local Villain team Undersiders. Call was made at 2244 hours.

Hellhound and minions spotted leaving the scene around 2247 hours. Multiple Civilian reports to PRT Operators made around this time, and for many minutes following.

Armsmaster called in Hostile Parahuman Lung as being subdued by unknown sedative, possible tinker make, at 2249 hours."

]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[

_[ Excerpt from PRT Trooper Neil Phillis's after action report. Conducted by Superior Officer Sergeant Todd Westly ]_

Neil Philis: "I don't know what the hell went down there sir, but the only reason we know there were at least four gangers, was the number of spleens."

Todd Westly: "Spleens?"

NP: "Yes sir, somehow whatever parahuman power was used there, it left the spleen mostly intact. It may have been a coincidence, but…"

TW: "You are looking a little green there Neil, you sure you can keep going?"

NP: "Yes sir. Just, give me a moment."

_[ Pause of seven minutes ]_

NP: "Okay, I don't think I'm going to puke now sir."

TW: "Take your time, I know that the Director has already pre-approved psych leave for everybody involved with the cleanup."

NP: _[ incomprehensible ]_

TW: "I am going to remind you that this meeting is being recorded Phillis, keep your remarks to yourself."

NP: "Sorry sir, won't happen again."

]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[

_[ PHO logs extracted 12-04-2011 ]_

XxVoid_CowboyxX : So anybody seen the latest mess near the BB Docks? Apparently the undersiders have decided to step up their game and took out Lung. Who even does that?

Avalon_ThreeZero : Yeah, [ REDACTED LINK ] and [ REDACTED LINK ], there is some gnarly images coming out from the area. Like scion dropped a boulder on the intersection and spread a dozen people over an entire block.

StarLemon66 : Oh god, at least mark those links as NSFL, I opened these at work! You are a scik fuck.

Bagrat : I've got a line from a friend who'd rather not be named, and they say that the Undersiders only turned up part way through, that damage? That was some new Parahuman. No further details for you, but I'm sniffing around.

AlterEgo : Oh boy, did you see, the PRT have a press release stating that they have captured Lung. And that whoever took him out used an unknown toxin to do so.

XxVoid_CowboyxX : Shit, there goes the neighborhood.

Judge : This thread is now locked. Please continue here [ REDACTED LINK ] on the official PRT press release for this event.

]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[

I woke up on the stairs in the basement, not the most comfortable place to sleep, I'll give it that, but the serum I had injected into myself seemed to have started working while I slept at least.

My hands were no longer leathery and hard to work, and I could stand up without too much pain. Just a shame I'd not waited to mainline that in bed. Then I wouldn't have aching bones.

I exited the basement quietly, hoping Dad wouldn't notice, and had a look around the house. Wait, how out of it was I when I got in. The place is ransacked.

A quick glance at the clock tells me that it's early evening, although it doesn't tell me which evening. But I suspect it's the same day, since I'd surely have been found by Dad when he got home… Crap I hope he didn't notice that I'd gone out for more than an entire day.

I managed to get myself upstairs, and into the shower, getting myself clean, and noting how even old scars were gone thanks to the wonder serum. I am definitely going to need to have two of those on my utility belt… which is now gone. Thanks blondie. Sigh.

After showering I found that I had to trim my hair a little, but for the most part, only the ends had got singed, and the rest was salvageable. Some good luck at last! After tending to my wounded hair, and dressing in my own clothes, I went through the pockets of the, I would hesitate to say stolen but that's the most likely answer, clothes I was left in. And found a note which included a number to call, a crude drawing of an eye, and two hearts. What a weird bitch.

I'd deal with that after recreating my visor… or just going for broke and making it a proper implant. I could FEEL my power purr at the idea of making my visor a proper implant. It'd been doing the same thing since I thought of the idea in the first place. But without high quality materials, the only implants I can make look more like overdone Borg parts.

And I couldn't risk my civilian identity being linked with the tinker who blows people up. That'd get me killed right quick, just ask New Wave.

I set about cleaning up the house, and getting dinner prepared. It was April twelfth, and a Tuesday, and thus my day to cook. So we'd be having Mac&Cheese, homemade of course, really it was all my minimal culinary skills were up to. I'd been better once, but ever since I found I could turn rats into what amounts to living sticks of dynamite, well my skills in a lot of other areas had dropped off.

Maybe it was the scatter brained nature of my power? Maybe I was just never good at cooking? Who knows…

"Hey Kiddo, you home?" It's Dad, and he sounds… sheepish. Am I in the clear?

"Right here Dad, making mac and cheese."

"Oh, that sounds...good." I could hear the distinctive pause before the good. What an asshole, couldn't at least pretend to like my cooking?

"Damn right, best fake food ever!" And I won't hear any complaints from you!

"Taylor, about last night…" yeah this was going to go well.

"Yes Dad?"

"I'm… I'm sorry about being out all night. And not seeing you in the morning. Kurt got hurt down at the docks, and Lacey was going nuts. I should have called, I'm sorry." Oh, so I am in the clear! Woo! Thank you Kurt.

"That's okay Dad, I just had a quiet night, it was fine." Lie, lie, and lie some more.

He finally poked his head around the corner, his tie already gone, and his shoes were inevitably sitting on my favorite spot on the couch already.

"Oh that smells… good, thank you for cooking Taylor." He fucking did it again! "But you know we could always get takeout, you must have cooked last night too."

"Nah Dad, it's fine, I don't mind." You can fucking suffer it then, no Kung Pow Chicken for you!

]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[

The night had been quiet, and other than my escapades appearing on the news, for what I was assured was the second night in a row, nothing of note happened.

Dad hadn't noticed that I'd cleaned up the house after he ransacked it for an overnight kit. I wonder if it were me who'd ransacked the house if he'd even notice.

After Dad went to bed, I went through the hidden spots outside that I'd set up rat traps in. Two were caught alive, and a third had gnawed its own stuck leg off and bled out. Can't say I blame the bastard, but it'd have been nice if it hadn't been two nights ago, the parts were useless now.

Tossing the rotting corpse over the fence at the neighbor's open barbeque, I headed off to the basement to start work on the other two.

Now, most accounts from tinkers, or people pretending to be tinkers, suggests that most of them know what they are doing when they make things. I am, unfortunately, the rare sort that does not. I make a decision about what I want to make, and so long as my power agrees with me, I can just… give up control to my power, and it will make the device.

So I was destined to spend many hours in what is known as a 'Tinker Fugue'. I had reached an understanding with my power. I would give up control of my body while it made things and it stopped yelling at me to make Borg from everyone and everything around me. At least until I got antsy and then we both wanted to make more abominations…Either way, I was already resigned to having no recollections of my work during the process. It was probably for the best. No one really _wants_ to remember making Frankenstein's monster after all.

Short end of the stick, maybe. But at least I don't need to waste time actually designing things like a chump.

A short fugue later and I had a pair of cryogenic rat grenades. Honestly, if my power didn't short circuit the ick factor for me, I'm sure I'd never amount to anything, even with a power. And with the power, well I haven't made a good showing of myself so far have I?

I stuck the cold boys in a cage, along with a little bird seed and a bowl of water. I wasn't a monster, I simply made them.

I'd need something bigger, maybe if I made a remote neural disruptor I could capture that damned cat that had been taunting me for the last two weeks. No, you don't like that idea power? How about if I catch a pigeon and give it taser claws? Ooo, that sounds like FUN!

I grabbed a small bag of bird seed, zip ties, and my jacket and headed out to the park. It was dark, and I wasn't really supposed to be out, but I needed to have something in the way of an arsenal or I'd be in a right mess if I had another bad day at school and decided to do something stupid.

]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[

I skipped school today. It wasn't a smart move, Emma, the bitch that she was, likely had 'helpfully' informed the staff that I was missing, and didn't have any excuse. Luckily it turns out that the staff at Winslow don't even really care about her if there is no fire, so nobody had called Dad. I know this because Dad would have been all fire and brimstone at me otherwise.

I slept most of the morning away, turns out going out at night and capturing a dozen pigeons at a park, then spending till dawn turning them into monstrosities is fairly taxing on the old body. Even with a dose of super-caffeine.

Yes, my power comes complete with it's own drugs. Technically the proper name would be something with about a hundred syllables, but fuck IUPAC, 'Super-Caffeine' is a boss name! Three shots more of that than the recommended dosage, and keep in mind that it's my own dosage levels, and you'll be buzzing for hours. And then crash into the deepest sleep you've ever had.

Pretty good way of resetting though.

On the way back from the park, with an arm full of ziptied pigeons, I had spotted an asshole stealing things from someone's house, and I'd stolen the PlayStation that was in the guy's van and booked it. It was a lucky find, as it had all sorts of little parts that would allow me to make a proper implant for once.

My power was a little weird. I could make pretty much any device I could think of into an implant, and my power would be ecstatic about it. The only issue, without high quality parts, it would _always_ make a distressingly Borg like component. Often with high pitched sounds or other obvious drawbacks. But if I could get my hands on some high quality materials I could make the proper sci-fi ones. Implants that were entirely invisible to regular scanners, or visual inspection.

So with that PlayStation, I think I'll call it Steve, I was able to craft two entirely new implants. One is a cochlear replacement that will tap into any audio reception system nearby and provide audio. It would calculate the offset from myself and automatically correct the volume and apparent direction to give me incredibly accurate, long range, directional hearing.

The other is an ocular implant that goes in behind my eyes, attached to the optic nerve, and will write information directly into my brain. However, since I made the cochlear implant first, this one wouldn't be smart, and would instead be fed from an external source. This was no accident, since I already had an external source: the system that powered my haptic control glove.

Now, I get to have a small funeral for Steve, which involves using the rest of the Playstation's plastic shell, and the few remaining parts to make Tim the Wonder Pigeon. Tim would be my eyes and ears from now on. I would add bionic eyes and ears, including beyond-human capabilities, and I think I'd use the blender up stairs to give him a stealth field.

What?

Nobody in this house can cook worth a damn anymore, you think we use that fucking blender? It'd be much better as a stealth device for a pigeon that'd help keep me alive.

]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[

No I wasn't putting off inserting the two new implants.

Okay, I lie, I totally was. It was scary. I'd never done anything like this to myself before, well I had, but the regeneration implant doesn't count, that was into my back. My power whispered that it'd all be okay, and that I'd be better for it. And logically I knew this.

But BOY was it scary to think about cutting into your own brain in four separate locations to insert the implants that'd be essentially permanent parts of myself for the rest of my, likely unnaturally short, life.

Okay, fuck, fuck, fuck. I take a swig of super-caffeine, boy that stuff has a kick like a pneumatically enhanced mule.

Time to get to the cutting.


	2. Chapter 2

Don't let anybody tell you that doing brain surgery on yourself is a good idea. Even with a tinker specialty that lets me cut into things and make them more than they were, let's just say that trying to do precision work on your optic nerve while the eye is hanging out of its socket is not something for the faint of heart. And nobody should have to do it to themselves.

But the other night had shown me that I couldn't get away with just my minions. Sure they packed a punch, but one wrong move and my control devices could be torn from me. And then I'd be in some real trouble.

I also couldn't go out again without at least one vial of serum. It was incredibly stupid to go out without a way to heal any injuries I might sustain. But I just… didn't think. Emma, that bitch, had gone off her nut at me again, and I just needed to _be_ somebody for once. And not just the limp noodle Emma thinks me to be.

A therapist would make a killing off of me if I had any money.

I pushed my eye back into its socket, and grimaced at the blurry vision, not to mention the discomfort.

"Well, at least that's done with. System Start!" I didn't actually have voice commands, everything went through the haptic control glove for now. So I had to stand up and waddle over to my equipment like a chump.

But after stuffing my hand into the glove and enabling the interface, I was able to quickly start the initiation and first diagnostic pass of my new ocular implants.

My vision disappeared behind a kaleidoscope of color and text. Oddly the text was in mandarin, was my power Chinese? Oh wait, there we go, it's English now.

And that is a lot of error messages. At least now I can actually test the code I wrote for the implants.

]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[

Two hours later and Dad is going to be home shortly, but the last of the bugs for my ocular implants had just been squashed, and now I had an overlay on everything around me. From highlighting over my pair of cryorats, to the blacked out BirdCam from Tim the Wonder Pigeon.

Poor Tim, all those mods really took it out of him. But he should be up and ready to go by tomorrow morning.

I had also cleaned out Sir RackUnit's cage. He had made a mess of himself attempting to follow my last orders before the Undersiders saved me. A bit of a shame that none of the parts were going to be usable afterwards either. Without the BunnyServer I'd not be able to set up a connection to the internet, nor would I be able to set off the kind of emergency signal I had.

The cochlear implants I had made would have to wait until tomorrow, those would require me to either ruin my ears, or punch a hole in my skull on both sides. And I didn't really have the tools for it. Maybe I could give a squirrel better fine motor skills and have it do the surgery for me? That's a good idea that will have absolutely zero negative effects, nope not one.

Another thing that'd have to wait for tomorrow is the rest of the pigeons. I managed to get a lot when I was out last night, but I had only upgraded six so far, Tim, and five of my non-lethal stun-pigeons.

I had added some fairly bulky zero-point energy taps to their chest, and a small turbine to replace their hearts. The power provided by the tap was then used to power the replacement claws, which were now capable of giving a taser-like shock, or applying a neural disruption effect if they held on long enough. They would have been barely capable of flight after that, so like Tim, they each got a small reactionless drive implanted along the length of their spine, which purely by chance gives them a row of razor sharp spikes along their back, making them fearsome as heck.

Muwahahahaha… Cough, cough.

I smacked my chest as a coughing fit overtook my maniacal laugh. The serum still hadn't had enough time to finish healing everything. I checked the time, 5:47pm, 13 April, well at least I'd never have a good excuse for being late again, but Dad would be turning up right about now. Unless he was working late again without telling me…

]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[

The night passed in a blur of Kung Pow Chicken, unfounded speculation on the recent spike in missing persons reports in the Bay, and Dad being as awkward and useless as ever. Fuck I just wish…

Ug. Wishes for Fishes, at least I could make use of a fish.

By the time Dad was sound asleep in bed I was exhausted, but set an alarm for early morning on my ocular implant, and went to sleep.

My dreams were full of fish with legs that went ALL the way up.

]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[

School was… abysmal. Here I am, trying to mind my own business and make it clear that I hadn't died yet, and Emma and her goons just had to try to make my life miserable.

"So the gormless freak is back at school, I heard that she had run away to join the merchants."

See, the trick with these girls was that they were after a reaction. Which is much harder to provoke when your target has videos of cute kittens constantly fed directly into her brain. Your words have no power over cute kittens!

"No, no, clearly she tried to join them, and after a few days they got sick of staring at worse garbage than they normally stare at, and tossed her out."

Ha, look at that little guy, he's never going to make that jump!

"Yeah, I bet she had to pay them to even…"

"Shh! Quinlan is coming, let's leave her 'till later."

Haha! Yeah I knew you wouldn't make that jump little guy, you better not try again!

Oh, wait, they've gone and buggered off. They don't even feel secure enough to attack me directly in front of a teacher, that's nice, they still have fear. Maybe I'd set a rat on them… No! Bad brain, bad Taylor, no murdering the school. The PRT would shit themselves, and they surely already think you are a villain, no need to make it worse.

No Kill Orders Taylor, remember?

I sigh, and walk off towards my next class, hopefully I'd have a clean chair in there for once.

]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[

I found myself sitting in front of the phone, turning the little note from the Blonde one over and over in my hand. She wanted to talk, wanted to explain things. Maybe she could be an ally, maybe she just wanted to use me, maybe she wanted to lead me into a trap…

I scream out loud, there is no point. If she wanted me dead she wouldn't have gotten me healing. So she either wants to help, or she wants to recruit me. And do I really have any better options?

The Protectorate would take one look at my monstrosities and throw me in the Birdcage.

The Merchants are a sickness upon our city.

The ABB only take asians, and I don't have the right heritage for that.

The Empire are all racist assholes, and I am not about that life.

So why not join with the relatively unknown group? They apparently were willing to stick it to Lung, which is more than I can say about any of the other groups.

What would Dad think? No, what would Mom think? She'd want me to do what my heart tells me to do… that was always her advice. 'Follow your heart little Owl, so long as you are doing what you love, you will never be doing something wrong for yourself.'

I wiped at my face, those aren't tears, no sir. That's just weakness leaving my body… Oh and a little blood from the ocular surgery.

"Breathe in, breathe out, throw the dice, you only get one shot, make it count."

I picked up the phone and punched in the number on the note, and punched the call button before my nerve could give out.

Ringing once, twice, and it's connected.

"Hello Taylor." She's researched me, knows my name, my face, is telling me she knows who I am, where I am. Is not threatening me, that's good at least.

"Guten Tag, Blondie." I didn't speak a lick of German, but let's see if we can confuse her with a clearly fake German accent.

A groan from the other end, she clearly didn't get the phone away from her face fast enough.

"You said you wanted to talk, to explain things?" I asked quickly, good, she's the one on the back foot now, advantage me.

"Yes, you were rather reckless the other night…" yes, yes, boring, boring, you are trying to get advantage back, no sir, no how.

"Not over the phone idiot," I interrupted, "meet me three blocks south of where you left me, there's a small cafe with roof access from behind. Eight pm, don't be late." I hung up the phone, heart beating fast, and took a few calming breaths.

Shit, shit, shit, shit. Right, sleeping pills in Dad's food tonight, got to make sure I can get out there uninterrupted… wait, wait. I didn't tell her to come alone…

"FUCK!"

]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[

There was a fairly frigid wind coming off the bay, and my ratty sweater was not really up for the task of keeping me warm. Luckily, the constant stress had my body rolling in fight or flight, and the sheer nerves were keeping me warm.

I was going to meet with a group of parahuman villains, in the early night, and have a talk about how they saved my life from Lung. I was far too sober for this crap.

I double checked Tim's feed, he had woken while I was at school, and so I had him out on his maiden flight. The aerial photography he was currently engaged in was incredibly relaxing. You could barely see the wreckage that years of neglect and deterioration had caused upon this city.

But the wreckage was good for one thing, it gave me plenty of low cost material to make abominations from. Of the other eleven pigeons I had captured the night before last, I'd managed to get five enhanced with the mods I had planned, five paralytic pigeons for four capes and three monsters… Something was off with my math recently, that's for sure.

An alert flickered into my mind, the text rendered directly into my mind.

_[ Incoming Priority Targets ]_

Ah, that would be the Undersiders. Tim had caught them in his enhanced vision, thermal blooms from the monsters they were riding, and a streak of both light and heat dampening black leaking from the lead rider. It wasn't much, but that would be Grue, with his 'darkness' powers.

Interesting that they dampened the entire spectrum that Tim could see in, that meant that his power would likely counter my ability to control my minions. Note to self, kill him first, stay out of the dark.

Yes, I had managed to do some research on the four idiots coming my way. Though at least they had a heavy hitter, so maybe they weren't as dumb as I was being.

There was Rachel Lindt - or Hellhound as the Protectorate called her - riding just behind the lead rider, on a separate beast, odd that she wasn't in front. Maybe they wanted to make their leader more obvious to me? Or distract me from the more dangerous threats?

Maybe she just wasn't allowed to do the talking?

And on the third and final beast, Regent and Tattletale, aka Blondie, rode. Regent shouldn't be a problem, he only really had a taser, and an uncanny ability to make people trip over their own feet. If it came down to it, I'd send two of the newly enhanced pigeons at him, making sure I could get away without smashing my face into the pavement.

And then the lady of the hour herself, Blondie McThinkerface. She called herself psychic, but nobody could read minds, well, except the Simurgh. I quickly threw a short prayer at all that was unholy that she wasn't also a memetic threat, and straightened up from where I had been sitting on the roof. Time to be a badass.

I adjusted my rubber vulture mask, making sure it covered my face. It wasn't much, but it'd do.

First one, then quickly the other two of the giant beasts crashed into the roof, having jumped across the street from the building opposite. They encircled me, leaving the only way out jumping backwards off the building into the alley below, but I'd planned for that, and the garbage below was piled up with cardboard and other softish bags of crap.

Grue dismounted, slipping off the lead dog and approaching me, little wisps of darkness slipping from the grill of his helmet. A nice touch that, but ultimately not that threatening. I put my gloved hand behind my back and twitched my fingers, the two cryorats followed the orders imparted, and slipped under the two dogs that were still occupied.

"Hey," the big guy waved, "I'm Grue, and before we start I want to apologize for Tattletale, she should never have looked into your civilian name, the rules are there to protect us all. Do you have anything you'd like us to call you?" A supplicating gesture. Is he the good cop to Blondie's piss poor attempt at bad cop? He acted first, wants you to think he is the leader. Holds himself with confidence in his position, thinks he is the leader, thinks that they could take me if I was a threat.

Well, that just wouldn't do…

"She's a Thinker!" Oi Blondie, no need to spoil the game so early. Better nip that in the bud.

"Not a Thinker, a Tinker. Sufficiently Advanced is the name of the game girly." Yeah, okay. Maybe I have a bit of a sore spot about being thought of as anything other than an awesome tinker. Maybe I didn't like people thinking the only reason I was smart was because of a power. Maybe I just didn't like her in particular.

"Stay out of this Tattletale, she outfoxed you on the phone, so you get to stay quiet." Ha, you go Grue, pretend you run this little outfit. Clearly the thinker runs the show.

"Yeah, Tats, you played a stupid game, now enjoy you stupid prize!" Regent was in a good mood, relaxed, hell he seemed almost happy behind his stupid getup.

"Quiet in the cheap seats, tall and gassy has the floor." I wanted to get this thing over with. "You can call me Vulture for now, not really a final name, but Hackjob seems like something the Slaughterhouse would use."

"Hackjob would have sent a bad first impression, yes. The other night was your first night out wasn't it? Tattletale thinks you didn't really plan to go out, and the state of your… costume backs that up." Hey, that was mean, my costume was brilliant, nobody would think I was a cape once I whipped the mask off, they'd just think I was an emo boy with body image issues.

"Yeah, really didn't intend to get into a fight, I just needed to… get out there, you know?" Emma had driven me into it, and Lung's friends had paid the price, and my poor visor…

"I get it, believe me, I do. But you are going to get yourself killed, or press-ganged into one of the gangs if you keep this up." Yep, here was the wind up for a recruitment pitch, he'd highlight the dangers, and offer me resources and a safe place. And it wouldn't be a bad deal, their team focused on escaping. So I had no idea why they had attacked Lung to save me. "But you helped us out, even if you didn't mean to." What?

"What?"

"Yeah, _somebody_ " a pointed glance at Tattletale spoke louder than words, "set up a job for us, and caught Lung's ire. It was our team he was out to get, but you hit him before he could set out." So why didn't you just head to Boston? "But we have investments here in the city, so couldn't let ourselves be driven out. But now Lung is in prison, and likely headed to the Birdcage, so thanks for that." Wait, what, did the sedative actually get him? Shit, I might not be able to use that on regular people in the future.

"Well, you are welcome I guess, is that why you saved my life?" Shit that sounded ungrateful, fuck it, not my problem.

"Kinda, it's also part of the Unwritten Rules to not kill each other. It's important that everybody can still walk home at the end of the day, or things will get really bad, really fast." I could see that, I unmask you, you unmask me, I kill your family, you kill mine. It would be a war of attrition that nobody would win.

I glanced over at the cryorat under Blondie's beast. I bet I could take them, I could call the PRT, offer these guys up. Be the hero, show Emma that I was better than her. No, that would never work. Only two of the beasts would be caught in the freezing burst, and then the other would eat me.

"You could help us with our next job!" Tattletale's hasty offer was tempting, they would be getting a good paycheque from it, no matter what it was. Crime pays after all. But did I want to associate myself with them? It would dilute my brand. But then, maybe that would be a good thing. I could strike it off independently with a slightly different M.O. later and be golden.

She was clearly making this snap decision under duress, but were there other motives here, or was it just my threat of explosive-rat? Did she know I knew what she was thinking? How deep was she able to think into a plot?

"The fantabulous exploding Vulture girl! She'd be a hit for sure boss, give us recon options." How did Regent know that I had Tim watching over us? Did Tattletale tell him? I hate thinkers.

"What do you mean Regent?" Grue was confused, this wasn't a plot thought of ahead of time. Though he wasn't as surprised by the offer to join whatever job it was. So they had talked about asking me to join that at least.

"She's seeing things from a birds eye view, cameras? Drones? She's a tinker Grue!" Ooo close but no cigar there Tattletale. I have a flock, a flock of one, but a flock.

"Is this true?" He's wary now, afraid I intend to hurt them, to capture them. But no, I would have waited longer before calling if that were the case.

"I am a tinker, yes." Intentionally obstructionist tinker, at your service.

His face-palm was incredibly satisfying. "Not what I meant Vulture, I mean, do you have us under surveillance now?"

"I did just answer that, but to be clear, yes, yes I do." Rachel growled, she actually growled, like a dog. That girl was way too into her character.

"Shit, are the PoPo coming, am I going to end up in Juvie? They use boys like me as currency, I can't do that." I… think Regent was making a joke. But he needed better material.

"No, she's the only one looking. She wants the money, needs it. She doesn't have the funding for her tinkering, and she doesn't like the Protectorate any more than Bitch does." Bitch? What a fucking rude thing to call your team mate. Christ, Blondie needs some work on her people skills. "If she has drones she would be useful, she would be able to spot a clear route for us. It would make our escapes easier, Grue." Wow, you might want to tone that sales pitch down there Tattletale, one might think you are desperate.

"Can't trust her." Succinct. Hellhound is a girl of few words it seems.

"And you want to trust the clown freak?" Who the hell is Regent talking about?

"Can't trust them either." Plural, no Regent implied one person? No gender? Or was Hellhound just an ass?

"Guys, stop, not here, not now. Vulture, we have a job in a few days, you'll get a half-share, because we don't trust you yet. But if you do help us with it and it goes well. Then we can discuss more opportunities and a full share later." Voice of reason, yeah, he absolutely had no idea that he wasn't the one running things.

I looked at Blondie with a quirked eyebrow, and she nodded nigh imperceptibly. Yeah, someone was pulling the strings behind her, and the others didn't know about it.

"Know what, fuck it, I'm in. What are we doing? Robbing a bank?" What other way am I going to get a good source of funding, if I can stick to being eyes and ears, then maybe nobody would peg me as a part of these clowns. Then I could do my own thing once I had outgrown them.

A small cough from Grue… "Oh, for fucks…Really? How much more clichéd can you get?" Regent was tickled pink by this apparently, as he slipped off the beast he was sitting on, laughing his ass off.

Blondie, face red from either anger or embarrassment, or both, pouted. "Are you going to help us? Because if so, we should go talk about it somewhere more enclosed." She was trying hard to close this deal, I had tripped her up by agreeing I think. Poor thinker, can't take what she tries to dish out?

"Sure, fuck it, nothing better to do tonight." I whistled sharply, a decoy mostly, and flicked my fingers, sending the cryorats off to hide in the backpack that was hidden in trash. I'd pick it up before leaving, can't go around unarmed can I?

]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[

We scheduled a proper planning meeting for the next day, after the school period. It would look less suspicious for five teens to be out and about after school was out after all. And I went home without Tim, he was left on observation duty, following the Undersiders back to their hideout.

I am absolutely sure that Tattletale knew I had done this though, because they didn't even attempt to evade the bird. If she hadn't wanted me to know where they were, they would have been able to easily out pace Tim. Or maybe she over estimated Tim's abilities? Who knew.

I still had another few hours of the night before I absolutely had to get some sleep, and I could always skip school, and boy that was a tempting thought. Know what, if I am going to be the villain, I can skip school if I want to. Lord knows I won't get anything resembling good grades from there.

So I spend the entire night in and out of a fugue.

I finished off the rest of the pigeons, and now have eleven stun-pigeons ready to go. Each of which would provide another point of view of the battlefield, although they all lack the quality of optics that Tim was fitted out with. These are combat units, and likely going to die.

Shock and Aves. Ha.

And I also managed to sort out a trio of mice, one incendiary, one concussion, and one that would produce something equivalent to the expanding containment foam that the PRT is so proud of. Now, one might worry about using living things as grenades, but honestly, is snapping their necks with a rat-trap any kinder? At least my way they get to go out with a bang!

Finally, in the early hours of the morning, I summoned up the courage to punch a hole through my ears to insert the cochlear implants. I did manage to make a better pain-killer out of the drugs the street-doctor had given me, so I wasn't screaming in pain while doing it. But I could tell my ears would hurt like a bitch in the morning.

Another shot of serum later, and I realized, as I fell asleep on the stairs again, that maybe I should move my serum supplies to my bedroom.

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I slept rather well on those stairs, and when I woke I found Dad's note that he had left early, and would be home late today. Something about a game of poker tonight. Honestly, it was like he had been written out of my life entirely. It was nice not to have to sneak around him, but… I missed having my Dad in my life.

Suck it up Taylor, there's a bank that needs robbing, and it wont rob itself.


	3. 3

The house phone rang, which never happened anymore. There wasn't anyone who would want to call me. Or Dad, but he wasn't here during the day, people knew that.

I picked it up.

"Taylor! Your bird friend, she needs to get out here, now! Same place we met last." Shit, Blondie? She was panicking, what the hell would make her panic?

"Sure thing, she'll be there in…" I thought for a moment. "Twenty minutes?" I could just get out there that quickly, but I'd need to have a sit down when I got there.

"Not fast enough, there's a burnt out shop five minutes north of your home. Meet there." Wow, something serious must be going down.

"Sure thing, see you then." I ignored, for the moment, that she knew exactly where I lived, she did know my name and home phone number. It would be trivial to get anything else after that. But Tattletale panicking? That likely meant one of their group was hurt, bad.

I raced downstairs and gathered up what equipment I could, throwing the cages open and sending commands to my minions. Racing back upstairs I threw on the same crappy vulture mask I was wearing last night. I guess I was going to be Vulture from now on.

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I had been waiting here for three minutes already, masked up and with all twelve of my pigeons flying a loose patrol over the area, before my optics threw out an alert.

_[ Incoming Priority Targets ]_

I quickly checked the feeds from the birds, and then designated the targets as Allies. I'd need to have that set for later, I could feel it in my bones.

The three giant dog-things bounded over the fence that wrapped around the store that had been firebombed over a year ago. Skidding to a halt in front of me.

"Get on, I'll explain on the way." Tattletale was sitting on her own beast this time, with Grue and Regent doubling up, and Hellhound on her own. She must really not like sharing. Blondie's hand was extended to me, so I reached up and gripped her wrist and pulled myself up.

Sitting on these things was an experience, spiney, leathery, and asymmetrical, it meant there were no good spots to sit comfortably, so I wrapped my arms around Tattletale, and held on tight.

"What's going on?" I asked her, as Hellhound let out a whistle and the beasts wheeled and jumped back over the fence, bringing us towards the Docks.

"The Bank Job is off, the ABB has gone crazy, the new tinker they picked up, Bakuda, has been bombing the city. I think she is trying to free Lung." Lung who had a grudge against us, who had a grudge against me specifically for beating him.

"Fuck, okay, so we are going to stop her?" Only sane plan available, let the Protectorate Birdcage the prick and the ABB would fall apart without the leadership. And there would be nobody with a grudge against us left.

"No! She's just a distraction, we're going after Oni-Lee. He's going after Lung in the PHQ." PHQ, the Protectorate Headquarters, the one that's an oil rig on the bay…

"I can't fly, I doubt these things can swim. And I don't have any more of the tranqs that took Lung down last time. What are you expecting us to do?" I wish I'd had more time to improve my stocks, but the city, apparently, wouldn't wait for me.

"No idea! We're making this one up as we go." Well that inspires confidence. Tally ho!

]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[

The PHQ was on fire. That did not bode well. But in the distance, with Tim's enhanced optics, I could just barely spot two figures on a boat heading towards the dock.

I point my arm towards them, "Oi, Hellhound, that way. Lung and Oni-Lee!" She snapped her head towards me and growled. Wow, she has some personality problems.

"Bitch, not the time! If Vulture can see them then we should follow!" Grue shouted at her, why were these guys such arseholes to her? Her name was Hellhound, wasn't it?

The mutant hounds bounded their way across the city, racing through backed up traffic, and jumping fences with little effort. Bringing us closer and closer to the specs that were slowly resolving themselves into Lung, and who I presumed to be Oni-Lee. They had just made landfall, and would be able to escape shortly. But we were too close now, fuck I hope this goes better than last time.

My optics fed me targeting information, and I flicked commands to the stun-pigeons. A bit of shock and awe to start things off with. Looking up I watched as nine pigeons pirouetted in the sky, before coming screaming down to sink their unnatural claws into the shoulders of the eight ABB goons, with the ninth slamming down into Oni-Lee himself. Their little zero point taps went into overcharge, and each of the gang members started to convulse as hundreds of volts of electricity and exotic energy leapt through their nervous systems.

Two of my pigeons had, according to the error messages that popped up, damaged their insulation upon collision and had fried themselves too. The zero point taps unsafely disengaged and exploded with the force of a small grenade. Well, those guys wouldn't be getting back up.

Oni-Lee was the only one of the group still on his feet, or trying to be. He would teleport forward and his new body would get a momentary respite before the shock reengaged and he started to convulse again. His other bodies collapsed into dust, but not before the duplicated pigeon's identical ID caused all sorts of havoc with my systems.

I had to sweep through error messages, and isolate that pigeon from the network. Which was not a kind thing, as it killed the neural control circuit and sent the poor beast into mental shock from pain and fear. Well, you win some, and you lose some to mental instability.

During the fight with my systems Lung had been engaged by the beast that Hellhound was riding, as well as the one ridden by Grue and Regent. Lung kept missing his swipes, poorly timed muscle spasms and loose gravel kept him from fighting at full capabilities, but he was swiftly ramping up, growing larger as the fight dragged on.

Oni-Lee however, was out for the count, one last teleport and he collapsed into the middle of the road. Hopefully unconscious. We'd either have to finish him off, or keep Lung away from the body.

"Bitch, get Oni-Lee's body, get it out of here!" Grue ordered, he was right, if we could keep Oni-Lee from being repatriated by Lung, then it'd be one less hostile parahuman after us in the future.

I threw one of my Cryorats at Lung as the creature Blondie and I were clinging to, bounded past. It's ruptured directly in Lung's face, a flash of bitter cold rushed past us leaving Lung encased in frozen… was that frozen air? Holy crap those rats were impressive explosives.

Hellhound leapt forward with her beast, and ordered it to grab Oni-Lee. Lung's heat was sending massive clouds of steam billowing around, and once his face was free he roared. He roared _loud_ , like a 747 taking off.

The beasts whined from the excessive sound, and Regent threw his scepter at Lung. I have no idea what he was trying to accomplish with that, he didn't even hit the bastard. What a shitty throwing arm he had.

Lung pulled himself free of the ice, and charged straight at Hellhound, so I threw my concussion mouse forward, sending it orders to climb onto Lung and detonate. Grue disappeared in a cloud of black smoke, and I slipped off the mount before it could drag me into that mess. I needed to be able to send commands, and I had learned that I couldn't from inside his darkness.

Hellhound, on the back of her beast, with her hair on fire, came screaming out of the dark fog, sending her mount careening through a fire hydrant. The insuant high velocity water doused her hair, and soaked the area around the fight.

Lung roared something incomprehensible, and charged out of the fog after Hellhound, but was aimed on a slightly wrong angle, and he went headfirst through the side of a brick warehouse.

"Shit, Grue, you have to stop the darkness. He can smell just as good as the dogs, it won't help!" Tattletale's own contribution to the fight is even less useful than Regent's was. But the dark cloud swiftly dissipated, and Grue was standing in the middle of the group of unconscious and dead ABB members.

"We have to get out of here!" I shouted at him "We can't win this fight anymore. Let's take Lee and go!" An observer might think me a coward, but it's better to retreat with a partial win, than stay and lose entirely.

"She's right, get Bitch and let's get out of here!" A miracle, Blondie can speak sense!

Lung's hand, now draconic and covered in metallic scales grabbed hold of the edge of the hole in the building he had accidentally redecorated. He was clearly back up, and ready for another round.

Regent threw his hand out, twisting in an awkward manner, and Lung fell flat on his face, his foot having given out underneath him.

"I can't keep this up guys, we need to go, now!" Even Regent was agreeing, three against two, we gotta go!

Lung once again climbed to his feet, but my concussion mouse managed to achieve its task of getting up close. Where the heat put off by Lung promptly cooked it, and set off the failsafes. The explosion was loud, setting my ears ringing, and Lung was thrown back into the building.

"Bitch, back on Brutus, let's go!" Grue cried out, running towards the nearest 'dog' himself.

Lung was back on his feet, and out of the building, before everyone was mounted, so I sent my remaining two stun-pigeons flying into his eyes, and overcharged their zero point generators. Hopefully this would only blow up in his face. I slapped my hands to my ears, and Blondie followed suit.

Then the world was light and noise.

My head hurt, and I am fairly sure my poor ears were bleeding. I opened my eyes and all I could see was red. I closed them again and flicked my optics into their backup mode. Tim's viewpoint showed what had happened.

I'd left another crater in Brockton Bay. This one a mite larger.

You see, a zero point tap fails explosively. Normally, you have all sorts of safeties to prevent this being too large, that's why the first failures were not so powerful. This time? I had disabled the safeties, and set them to ramp up first. The difference was… staggering.

I'd have to remember that for the future. Important safety tip: don't be nearby when disabling safeties. Rule… what number was I up to? Ah well, let's just use… Rule 8! Don't be nearby when disabling safeties!

Checking on the team, it looked like Hellhound was on her dog, and she seemed alive, so that's some luck right there. She must have managed to clamber on before the pigeons went off.

Grue and Regent were holding onto each other for dear life, on top of a dog who was limping quite badly, looks like a chunk of debris took one of its feet off.

And Tattletale was clearly hyperventilating against my chest.

Did we win the fight?

Other than Oni-Lee hanging from the jaws of Hellhound's ride. The only body still left was Lung's and it looked like he was either out cold, or dead. And I didn't want to stick around to find out. Apparently neither did anyone else.

The dogs took us to the Undersider's hideout, Tim followed along in the skies above us.

]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[

"Holy fucking shit, that was insane!" Regent shouted at the top of his lungs. Throwing himself down onto the bloodstained couch in the loft that the Undersiders used as a hideout.

We had dragged Oni-Lee inside with us, and Grue and Regent had stripped him of his weapons, then taped his eyes shut, and bound him to some defunct machinery downstairs. I rummaged through his pockets for anything worthwhile, but found nothing but a well destroyed cell phone.

That was ten minutes ago, and now we were upstairs. I had two small vials of serum with me, and I wasn't going to offer one out of the kindness of my heart. Just offering to help them with a bank robbery apparently gets me into another fight with Lung. So I'd rather be out of their lives as soon as possible.

"Insane, that was reckless and stupid. We could have been killed!" Okay, maybe coming off the adrenalin high was not going well for me.

"She's right Regent, and now we are going to be a target for the gangs, all of them." Grue did not like me, it was clear he blamed me for their encounters with Lung. Well fuck you too Grue, I didn't start either of them!

"So what? Let them come, with Vulture we can even take out Lung in a stand up fight! Nobody can beat us!" Seems I had a fan in Regent at least.

"Regent, that was a _fluke_ , we can't rely on luck." There was something else in Tattletale's voice, she was scared of something, something other than the concept of bigger fights. Someone had something over her…

"Wasn't luck." Hellhound snarled, stomping away into a room with her dogs following. How strange was it that her power let her turn monsters into dogs? When mine let me make monsters out of them. There's synergy there I tell you.

"Wait, Bitch likes her now? Wasn't she the one who wanted to kill her for what happened to those dogs?" Regent was incredulous, what the hell, of course she likes me more than you, you keep calling her nasty names!

"She still doesn't like her, she thinks she's strong. Bitch thinks having Vulture with us would mean that we never have to back down. She's wrong." Geeze, vote of confidence much?

"Why do you guys keep calling her a bitch? It's not nice." I frown, it reminds me so much of Emma and how she'd cut down everyone around her.

"Her cape name is Bitch, the PRT refused to use it and called her Hellhound instead." Grue spoke up, I'd almost forgotten he was here. Brooding in the corner tends to make you fade out of view. How he thought he was this group's leader though, that was beyond me.

"Oh…" It was kinda an awkward name to call someone though.

"Look… ugh. Why don't you go home Vulture, lay low. I'll get Tattletale to make sure you get paid for today. Thank you for coming when we needed you, but… We'll talk about things later. Tattletale, show her out and then meet me in my room, we need to talk." Oh boy, that was never a good thing to say to a girl about your relationship.

"I'll just sit here boss, minding my own business, won't listen in at all. No sir, no how." Oh god, Regent was a voyeur? I really should get out of here. Tattletale made a face, then waved her hand beckoning me.

"Let's get you out of here shall we, Vulture?" Someone was eager, maybe 'we need to talk' was a codeword? Maybe she was finished with the relationship too? Maybe the idea of Regent listening in did it for her?

Some days it felt like I'd never understand people.

]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[

"You make upgrades to living things, right?" Timid wasn't what I had expected from Tattletale, did she need an upgrade to protect herself? Well, okay, duh. Yes she did, she was a thinker who didn't have any combat tools.

"Yes, so long as it goes into a living thing. And it costs." My work was expensive, the few good pieces I had made so far had required far more than I was capable of providing on a regular basis. Maintenance would be required on them eventually, and without an income, I would have to rip most of them out.

"Can you make… something that interrupts powers?" She clearly had something specific she wanted made. Something to stop her power? Something to stop Grue's?

"Stop pussy footing around it Blondie, tell me whose power you need cancelled."

"The guy who wanted us to run that bank job? He is a cape, one with a thinker power. He gets to back out of any one choice he has made. I need a way to prevent him from doing that." Huh, how would a power like that even work? Does he get to see both options and choose one? Does he get to rewrite time and make it like he hadn't made a specific choice?

Powers were a right pain sometimes, especially if you didn't have enough information to work from. But mine was a gold mine, it fed me images of a temporal lock, that would prevent time from being manipulated around it. Something like that might stop Clockblocker, but probably wouldn't work for a backstepper; you got anything else, power? A quantum jammer, something that'd effectively block remote viewing by throwing random noise at the person doing so? That doesn't feel right.

"I need more information about how it works. Is he a precog - does he get to see the future? Does he simulate the results of things he does? Or does he rewrite time to change the decisions he has made? It's too big a problem without more information."

"He makes a yes/no choice, then gets to live out the results of both. I think he is limited to just one choice. I have no idea if he is destroying an alternate universe, or if the power just makes him pick the choice he didn't back out of." So she's not working off perfect information either, this hostile cape must keep himself out of the public eye. But I doubt she would be worried about someone outside of the Bay.

Only one gang wasn't well documented for the Bay. Only one person who might have powers that were unknown. Her face twitched, she had figured out that I'd figured out who he was.

"Coil." She nodded.

Could I prevent the timeline from being split? Huh, yes, but it would cost way more than was feasible and cause all sorts of havoc with dimensional links. Neat, I could cut us off from Earth Aleph. Could I prevent a precog from seeing the future? Oh, that's the ticket right there. A mind shield, it would have to be woven into the brain, but it would prevent _any_ kind of mind reading, precognitive, or Simurgh!

"Holy _crap_ , I could make someone immune to the Simurgh…"

"You…you don't have limits, do you?" Tattletale's voice was a mere whisper, something that I'd not heard from her in the - limited - time I had known her. Wait, did I say that out loud? Yes, fuck I did.

"I have never tried to make anything even remotely as complex. It would be too expensive." Unless she wasn't worried about her looks, but with a skintight outfit like hers? Yeah, she was attached to being pretty.

"How expensive?" She thought she could afford it, how cute.

"To make it so you don't look like your face was merged with an industrial blender? I think I'd need three months and several million worth of parts and tools." If I had half the tools I needed it would only take a tenth of that time.

I must say, her face as she digested that tidbit? Hilarious. Then her eyes flicked towards Oni-Lee. She had a bad idea. "You can control those animals you use as weapons, right? How?" Yeah, she had a really _bad_ idea.

"A control chip I stick in their brain, part of the process of making them useful. I need to be able to control what they attack after all."

"You can put one in a person too, can't you?" The fear in her eyes was palpable. Someone had her at gunpoint, someone controlled her. Oh. That's why she wanted to block Coil's power. He had something over her, and was threatening her. She, and therefore the Undersiders, worked for him.

"You want to kill Coil." It was obvious.

She nodded. "Yes. The idea you had, the one that would stop the Simurgh, it will stop Coil too?" Hope tinged her voice, oh boy, if I were a bad person I could crush her so badly. But that would make me like Emma, and I would NEVER be like her.

"I think so, if his power works like you think it does, it wouldn't know which was the correct choice. Any action someone with a mind shield took would be unaccounted for."

"And you said the pretty version would be expensive. How expensive would it be to make the ugly one?" There was excitement in her tone now. She saw a way out, a way to claim her freedom from Coil. She needed this. She clearly had plans, ideas, she was a thinker after all, but none of them offered her a guarantee. In a battle between thinkers, the unexpected tinker wins.

"I would need several thousand worth of electronic goods, I think. Maybe a kilogram of tinker-grade metal. It would be affordable, but I have no idea if it would play nicely with Oni-Lee's power. He is the one you are thinking of, right?" Oh man, enslave one person to free another? Could I do it? Probably. Oni-Lee was a demon, he had hurt a _lot_ of people. Preventing that would be a good thing, wouldn't it?

He had also tried to kill me, and that deserved some kind of punishment. Couldn't let people think they could challenge me in my own city after all.

Yes, this could be fun, testing my limits, seeing how far I could go with implants… Hmm, I should probably be worried that I was getting excited over the idea…

"Yeah, it's not the most moral decision." Big understatement there. "But, I think it's the only one that will work. Coil… knows about you. He knows you are a tinker who enhances people. He wants to have you work for him." My eyes narrowed at her. "I'm sorry. I couldn't avoid telling him, he would have tortured me. I think he… I think _did_ in his other reality." She broke down into tears, the stress of the situation clearly getting to her.

On the one hand, there is absolutely no way I can call myself a hero if I enslave Oni-Lee.

On the other hand, if I don't, Coil will continue to enslave this girl, and would try to enslave me too. That I would get to expand my skill set beyond pigeons, rats, and dogs would be a nice bonus.

Moving for a third option would take time, and both tinkers and thinkers are best when given time. Bakuda's bombing spree had shattered the fragile balance of power in the city. To be fair, I had technically done that by taking down Lung; I had shown that he could be beaten. She may have been bigger and louder. Well louder until I busted a _crater_ in the city... taking down Lung _again_. Okay, yes, this might just be my fault. Oops.

The Empire now had the clear upper hand. Their large roster of experienced capes would let them steamroll the remaining competition in the gangs, and then turn against the Protectorate. The city would collapse into chaos, and Coil, with his ability to try two different approaches at once, would be the one to reap the benefits.

I had to assume he already knew about everything, except this conversation.

This was going to suck.


	4. 4

Oni Lee was captured. Bakuda's plan was foiled. The ABB would be coming for me. I had to assume Lung had survived, he had fought an Endbringer and lived to tell the tale. He was probably embarrassed instead of dead. It was a toss up which was worse for me. One way I deal with an angry Lung, the other an angry PRT. I wonder if he had a bounty?

Shame he wasn't just a smear on the sidewalk. Ah well, you couldn't make a decent stun-pigeon without splicing some new organs into the bird!

Either way, the Empire was provoked, they would be out in force. But they had no specific beef with me; not yet. I probably shouldn't piss them off until I finished off the ABB by accident - which was bound to happen soon at the rate I was going.

The Protectorate and the PRT were busy trying to contain the fighting, failing to bring back order to the city. When they learned what I was going to do, I would be labeled a villain, and they would never stop coming after me.

The Merchants were trash, but one couldn't overlook them. They had survived in a city that hated them more than it hated Nazis. That took guts, luck wouldn't have been enough.

Coil however, he wanted me enslaved. He wanted me under his thumb, churning out soldiers for him. Tattletale had told him about me, she had told him of my abilities. But she hadn't known their full extent - I'm still not sure _I_ did.

This was going to become a six way war, and the only advantage I had, was that none of the sides knew what I could do. So I had to act, and I had to act fast.

The first target is Coil, with him gone, none of the other sides would have an inkling of my abilities. That will leave them vulnerable. But to kill or capture Coil would require a workaround for his power. We could do it without tinkertech, but it would take time, time we didn't have.

So here we were, late at night, outside a PRT affiliated storage facility for tinkertech goodies. Normally, there would be a heavy guard, but not tonight. Not with Bakuda bombing the city, not with the ABB and the Empire fighting in the open.

Tonight they had just three men guarding the place. I flicked my fingers, and three pigeons dropped from the sky, latching onto the men, shocking them into unconsciousness. I was damn glad there weren't any more, I only had three stun-pigeons with me. I just didn't have time to make more, not between the talk with Tattletale and now.

I sent them back into the air to join overwatch with Tim the Wonder Pigeon.

"We're clear." I gripped the spike of the dog-monster I was riding harder as it jumped forward at its master's command, right behind the first dog with Bitch astride. Her's tore through the front door, setting off the silent alarm as we barreled through.

"Remember! Computer parts, metals, shiny shit in general!" I shouted out. I needed the best materials to make the best pieces of tech. I don't think it would matter exactly what it was, luckily there was a vast selection inside.

I jumped off the dog, and started shoving entire armloads inside the burlap sack I'd painted with a big black dollar sign. Hey, if I am going to rob someone, I am going to do it right.

The sack quickly filled up, and I rushed back to the dog to tie it to a spike. Grabbing another bag I rushed back to the shelves to fill it up. The others were doing their part, Regent was even singing a stupid song, something about being a pirate.

_[ Incoming Targets ]_

"Company!" I shouted, flicking over to the feed from Tim. "Looks like we have Wards, Kid Win and Aegis." We couldn't afford to be caught here, we had to go.

"Back to the dogs, we're leaving. Vulture, take them out of the game." Grue ordered. A quick flick of my hand sent a pigeon into the face of each of the wards. Kid Win noticed first, and shot the one flying at him out of the sky. He must have hit something important, as the feed was lost, and there was a loud boom from outside. The zero point tap failed, luckily not as catastrophically as it could have, the safeties were still on after all.

The other latched onto Aegis, shocking him, and sending him tumbling out of the sky to land on the roof of a building. Ouch, that must have hurt.

"One down, Kid popped his bird. Should I send the other one in?" Please say no, I don't really want to waste these things.

"Only if he pursues us. All on?" A chorus of affirmatives followed, and Bitch let out a whistle. The dogs turned and took us back out the way we came. I have no idea what we managed to loot, but it had better be enough.

Checking on the camera feeds, Kid Win had flown down to Aegis, but couldn't remove the pigeon without making it explode. He looked quite frustrated there. We were moving quickly away, so I recalled the pigeon, who was swiftly in the air and dodging fire from Kid Win almost as soon as he was off Aegis. But Kid Win proved that the first pigeon was a fluke, as he missed every shot.

Another order and the three remaining pigeons would follow us on a circulatorious route. It wouldn't do to have them follow us directly back to the Undersider's base after all.

]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[

"I vote we keep the new girl. She's a fucking riot!" Regent laughed like an idiot. He obviously enjoyed the spectacle of it all. Although, judging by the sack he had filled, he also thought you were supposed to paint a dollar sign on your bag of loot.

"I'm not fucking dealing with this tonight, I'm going to bed. Tats, I want to see that money you promised us in our accounts by morning." Grue was grumpy, I don't think he liked me taking out the Wards. Maybe he just really didn't like it when Tattletale was calling the shots. Well sucks for him, Girl Power!

Bitch followed him up the stairs to the loft, not a girl of many words that one.

"Fine then, just leave me here with the strange girl, and the pigeon lady!" He smirked at me, "They are more fun anyway." Wait, did he mean..? Ew. Ew, ew, ew!

"Gross, fuck off Regent. Take your pervy mind elsewhere." How the fuck did Tattletale put up with him?

"Fine, fine, but if you change your mind? I'll be in my bunk." He winked at her. Ew, what a sleeze.

Tattletale just pulled a finger at him, as he skipped up the stairs.

"Lets see how well the raid did, shall we?" She was keen, wanting to get a return on her investment as quickly as possible I think. But with the threat of Coil over her, I could entirely understand.

"Help me lay out the stuff, group it up as much as possible, it'll be easier to filter out the chaff that way."

]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[

"Useless! Useless! Useless! There's not enough good stuff here Tattletale! You promised me good loot!" I could do so much with what I had, but the mind shield was beyond this.

"I didn't have enough time to plan, and whose fault was that, huh?" Yeah, blame me why don't you. This is why you never give a job to a thinker.

"You're the thinker, you told me that this warehouse would be chock full. It looks like someone else raided it before we could." Most likely it had never actually stored any of the really good stuff, likely it was a honeypot for villainous tinkers. The response times were too good. The only reason we got anything worth using at all was because we had a better exit strategy than any new tinker would have had.

"You and I both know that's not what you are thinking Vulture. Why do you insist on being so infuriating?" Maybe because you know my name, and I don't know yours. Maybe because, even though we are nominally on the same team, you still won't work with me. Maybe because you are a damned, dirty thinker.

Maybe because Emma broke me worse than I thought. I don't know if I can trust like that again. I don't know if I _want_ to…

"Let's just… cool down a bit. Eh?" Something must have flashed over my face, she'd seen something more than I had wanted her to see. Did she guess she was getting too close to my trigger event? Or did she just remember that Coil is the enemy here, not me.

"Fine. Just… I can't make the mind shield with this. Well, I could, but it'd take months." I poked my power, it offered all sorts of ways to implant the mind shield, but no real alternatives to the material cost. I would need a rather extensive supply of tools and equipment to be able to manufacture and implant a full mind shield. And anything less wouldn't offer enough protection.

"Could you make something lesser? A one use thing?" That… had potential. I tried poking my power again, asking for a mind shield that used one-off components. Something injectable, or something with a capacitor or buffer that would burn out as it was used. It… paused. My power actually paused. It had never done that before.

"I… my power is taking a long time to respond to that idea." My power isn't…

[̺̹̫̫͙̅̈́͂̑̔̔̋E̮ͨR̦̞̘̥̦̈́̄͒ͫR̡̈̉ͪ̂̏ͣ̅O̙̥̮̜̬̽̃ͣ̉̀̋ͮR̵̈́͗̔̑̀̊]̦̪̼͖ͨͩ̈̒̾̿̏͗̋ͦ̐͟  
 _A bright field of stars.  
_ [̨̗̥̿̉P̭̉ͥ͐̅̾͝A̹̲͗̈́̇̈R̤̹͎̣̫̾̉͛̓̚ͅA̠̙ͨ͝ͅM̓̃͗̿͒҉̼̪̙̟̼̲E̹̱͓̮ͅT̞̯̭̖̜̦ͦ͑̏͗͢ͅȨ͖̼͙͔̫̱ͅR̥̣̼̘̈́ͥ ̘̥͌ͫ̃̀̌̅E̒͛ͮ̌̒̍ͪX͕̪͑̈́͑̈C̠̮͖̫̼̳̗E̍̃ͯ͐̋E̩͎̗̗̯̙̩ͭḎ̨̤̗̽ͨE̯͖̻̫͖ͪ̓̏̿̊̀D̞͇̪͖̣͖̗ͮͤͥͧ̀]͈̈́̀̄ͣͮ̈́̑  
 _A shadow, impossibly ancient.  
_ ̬̯̹̩͎̈ͤ[̮̝̠̽̽͋ͨͧ̌͠R͠E͖̬̙̼̗̺̤ͦ̍S̄̔̒͗̂͑͏͈̺͕Tͬ̊͆ͅO̹̺̟͗ͣ̆̀R̭̖̝̮̼̣̅ͣI̩̼̫̹ͩͤͭ̃͢N̲̝Ǧ̲̟̬͖̱̞ͧ]̟͕̝͙͆̆ͫ̔̅

"...ture. Vulture! Snap out of it!" Huh, what?

"Huh?"

She sat back with a sigh. "Welcome back. You blue screened there, just stopped responding. Even your heart rate dropped." Thats… scary.

"What were we talking about just before it happened? I know we were talking about something, but not what."

"Your power was taking too long to respond. I think you realized something about the limits of your power. And then you just… stopped." Am I not allowed to know your limits, power? Is that it? Do you want me to stay confined to a neat little box? That's not really a thing that humans are willing to do, I hope you know that.

"I think my power didn't want me to know something about how it functions." My head hurts.

"Maybe we should stop talking about it then. We could talk about how we are going to kill Coil?" She wanted, so desperately, to talk about our powers. It was obvious, but she refused to allow her drive to push me away. She needed me that badly.

What had Coil done to her? What would he have done to her in his precoged simulations, and how much did she know thanks to her own power? What would he want to do to me? I shuddered.

"I don't think I can make a one-use mind shield. I don't think my power is intended to be used that way." I wonder…

"This isn't talking about it?" She was amused, she didn't understand.

"I can think about _my_ limits with my power. I can't think about my _power's_ limits." Could I link two powers together?

"So… like, thinking about a car going only 60, because of the law, is okay. But thinking about it going 110, because it's engine can't go faster, is not?" Could I link another tinker's power with mine?

"Let's go with that. It sounds about right." Could I link Oni Lee's power into someone else?

Suddenly an idea for a device entered my mind. My power wanted me to have it, I could feel it. The device would attach the Corona Pollentia, and the Corona Gemma, it would tear those parts out of the brain of the subject, then could be implanted into the brain of another person. It would tie itself into their brain, and provide the connections required by the Corona.

I could transplant a person's powers.

I rushed over to a rusty bucket that was lying on its side down here in the workshop under the Undersider's base. Barely getting it upright in time for my stomach to empty itself.

After a moment Tattletale's hand connected with my back, and she started to rub in small circles. It was… nice.

After I stopped heaving I sat up, feeling sorry for myself.

"I think, when I got my power, I did something to my brain. I think I stopped myself from feeling horror at what I can do. I think my power just reset that…" Oh god I hope not, it would suck to be unable to use the best bits of my power without tossing my lunch.

"Think about your rat-thing, or the bird you use to spy on people. Do those make you sick?" I thought about Tim, about the surgery to insert the turbine that replaced his heart, about the zero point tap embedded in his front that provides power to his components…

And I didn't feel sick. "No." I let out a sigh of relief. "I think, it's just the idea of doing it to people… or maybe, just screwing around with people's powers?" I would still be effective, I just had to find different ways of influencing powers. I couldn't just tear them out of someone…

I was dry heaving over the bucket again.

"I think you shouldn't think about it Taylor. But it's nice to know that you aren't a psychopath… so there's that?" What a shit joke Tattletale. "Ugh, I can't keep calling you Vulture when your mask isn't on, and it doesn't feel right to call you by your name when you don't know mine." She reached up and tore off her little domino mask, and revealed her face to me. "I'm Lisa. Lisa Wilborne. Let's try to be friends, yeah? We _are_ kinda in this together."

I laughed. "Sure Lisa, I'm Taylor, but you already knew that. Shall we get started?"

"Started? On what?" Ha, she hadn't figured it out? Thinker's weren't all they were cracked up to be.

"On building something to kill Coil. Obviously." I grinned at her, and her face slowly broke out in a feral smile.

"Oh! Yes, we very much should."

]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[

"I am never helping you work again." Lisa was bent over a yellow plastic bucket. She had not kept down her dinner after helping me enhance my latest subjects.

"If it makes you feel better, I don't really get to remember what, or how, I do when I make these little guys. You are the only one who does!" The fugues made sure that I made no mistakes, the fugues also meant I had no idea if I'd done what I set out to do.

"That does _not_ help, Taylor! That poor raccoon…" I had made it superior, I had given it purpose. You should reserve your pity for Oni Lee, he had to wait, he had to go without enhancement for now. I don't know how he could stand it.

"We need them Lisa, we need an income, we need resources. We can't buy it, you said so yourself. It's too suspicious to get large shipments of components and materials." Junkyards, garbage bins, derelicts. They would provide a source of materials, scrap, broken electronics. I could make do, but it would take longer than fresh materials.

"And what better to steal from garbage bins than a raccoon?" Sarcasm? She knows the reasoning, hell, she had suggested it in the first place. Well, she may not have realized what it meant to give me a half dozen raccoons.

"Exactly! They can walk on two feet now, carry well over 220 pounds, and best of all? They are networked, so what one knows, all know." I was hyped, this was a brilliant idea. Nothing about it could go wrong. Nobody worried about raccoons hauling away garbage.

She just buried her face back into the bucket and hurled.

]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[

_[ Excerpt from Protectorate Wards debriefing ]_

Kid Win: "I have no idea what happened, but one moment we were flying towards the break-in, and the next… I don't know. You've seen the footage."

Armsmaster: "Yes, an unfortunate lack of detail was present in the footage."

Aegis: "All I have for you is that it wasn't just electricity. If that were all, I would have adapted quickly enough. Those birds had something else as well."

Kid Win: "I'm not sure they were birds, at least, not entirely."

Armsmaster: "Explain."

Kid Win: "I think they may have been constructs, made to look like birds. I don't think their wings were used as part of their flight."

Armsmaster: "Possible tinker origin? I'll note it down, but tinker's are noted as often assuming tinkertech origins when faced with new threats."

Aegis: "If Kid says it was a construct, that's good enough for me."

]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[

_[ Section of a PRT preliminary report found on Coil's servers ]_

The unknown parahuman, preliminary name 'Fledgeling', appears to have a master effect focusing on the control of birds.

Their power is unknown in scope, but a request for thinker time was approved, and the result suggests that Fledgeling can see through the birds.

Fledgeling's costume is unknown at this point. No visual contact has been reported.

Kid Win has reported that the birds explode when fired upon, so all forces are to use containment foam where possible.

These explosions may be related to an incident on April 10th 2011.

Treat the target as a master/thinker.

Treat the minions as live grenades.

]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[

I woke up on the bloodstained couch in the Undersider's lair. Morning had come and gone, and it had ticked over to afternoon not long ago according to my clock. A pretty boy was sitting on the couch playing console, my feet had been shoved over by the rude prick and that had woken me.

"Morning princess, make anything fun for me last night?" Regent? Oh yes, I suppose he wouldn't wear his mask in his own home.

"How about I make a squirrel that crawls inside to make a nest in your ass." Super-Caffeine, I needed it.

"Sounds kinky, does it come in white? Else it'd clash horribly with the outfit." Was he… gay? No, his eyes had been drawn straight to my chest before flicking away. Prick, no need to point that out, I was aware of my own inadequacy. Emma had made that perfectly apparent…

"Fuck you, get me a coffee." Fuck this, fuck Regent, fuck Emma.

"A scrawny girl like you? Na, you can get your own coffee." Fine, be like that, I still had my haptic glove on. A flick of my fingers drew his attention, but it was quickly lost as his character died on the screen.

I didn't have to wait long for my revenge. I could hear the skittering of their tiny robotic feet on the wooden floors.

"Ow! Fuck, what the fuck you crazy bitch!" A large jar of hot water had been poured onto his lap by two of my utility-raccoons. Investment returned, these would be so worth it.

I sat up, laughing at his misfortune. "Be more respectful next time Regent. I've got an army now!"

He looked at me, then looked closely at the utility-raccoon in front of him, his pain forgotten. "You made this? You made multiple of… these? Fuck this is awesome! Brian! We have a tinker death army!"

"They aren't for combat, dick. These guys? They are going to loot stuff, get me what I need to make something better." Vulture would be a name on everyone's lips. Emma would be forgotten, not even a footnote in the history of Vulture. Stop, pause, calm. Coil first, then the world.

But first: coffee.

"You made them new limbs, can you do things that don't make a Frankenstein look cuddly?"

"Frankenstein was the doctor, not the monster. But yes, I can, it's just more expensive. Did… did you want some upgrades?" A _willing_ volunteer?! Oh the things that I could do…

"Can you…" he paused, there was a glimmer of weakness there, he had something he was afraid of. He wanted protection from something in his past?

"What the hell are you on about, Alec. Oh, Vulture, sorry didn't see you there." So this was Grue, Brian… he was _scrumptious_ , too bad he was clearly fucking daft. Giving out people's real names, doesn't he know that's what happened to Fleur?

"She made a service-badger, Brian!" Well, now I'd not know what Alec had wanted, I pouted. It would have been nice to have something to hold over the pervert.

"It's not a badger, it's a utility-raccoon, clearly all the gaming has made your eyes rot. Do you need me to give you a new set? I think I could make some from your console." Ha! The horror on his face, it wasn't entirely feigned.

"You leave my Xbox out of this, witch!" He'd moved to stand in front of it. Pfft, not like I needed his, there were entire stores full of them on the boardwalk that were mostly unguarded at night.

"What the hell have you done, Vulture? Making monsters gets you a Kill Order." Well what choice do I have Mr. Moral?

"First, my name is Taylor, Vulture is for when we are out there. Second, thank you _so much_ for the education in Kill Orders, because _of course_ I _didn't know that_. No, I know exactly what awaits me if I fuck up." I didn't bother to wait for his response, even as his face twisted into a snarl and he opened his mouth to retaliate, I just barrelled on, "I don't want a Kill Order anymore than you want the attention on your team. My work is _expensive_ and we can't hit a protectorate honeypot every week. These guys will go out and collect stuff for me to use, which will make things a bit easier in the future. They aren't supposed to be _seen_." Getting seen would let people know what I could do, I couldn't have that. "I'm here to help Tattletale with her problem, and then I can be gone."

"Keep the monsters out of the loft, and off missions. I can't have you risking everyone else's lives like that."

Lisa opened the door to her room, poking her head out, but wisely kept her mouth closed.

"And what of the ones that saved your life when you dragged us into a fight with Lung? Without bothering to inform me that we were _going to fight Lung_. I'm a tinker. I need time and resources. Ever stop to think that letting me have a heads up might have been in your group's best interests?" Rest in peace my little bird friends. Your sacrifice was for the greater good of Vulture.

"They _were_ pretty useful Brian, Taylor is going to be a huge asset. She's already helped us put down Lung and capture Oni Lee. The other gangs will be forced to give us a wide berth, they couldn't take Lung, but we did, twice." Lisa was quiet, demure almost. She was playing him, making him feel like he was the leader, so that he would do what she wanted him to. I would have to do something nice for her.

His glare was in full force, "Keep the monsters out of sight! Tats. She's your responsibility, if anything goes wrong from now on, it's on your head." He stormed out of the loft, slamming the heavy door behind him. How rude.

"Well, that happened." I turned to Alec, "So Alec, Lisa, you guys want something a little better than coffee to start the day off with?"


	5. 5

"Dad? I'm home!" I wondered if he had even noticed that I was gone.

"Taylor!" There was a crashing sound from upstairs, followed by muffled swearing. Dad thumped his way down the stairs, two at a time. Then he wrapped me in a bear hug. Huh, that was the first time he had hugged me in more than a month - and Lisa was here to see it. How embarrassing.

"Can't breathe," I said, my voice flat. I could, of course, actually breathe, but it was part of the game you were supposed to play.

"I'm so glad you are safe Taylor, I called everyone. I was just on hold with the police waiting to put in a missing persons report! Don't scare me like that. Where were you?" Yeah, I couldn't have him questioning me like that, I needed to be able to keep my cape life secret. From the PRT, from dad, from everyone.

"Dad! I was at Lisa's, I told you this. I've been planning it for the whole week! You never listen to me!" First, put him on the back foot, make him think he is in the wrong, not me.

"Wait, what? No…" Haha, weakness, attack Taylor, attack!

"I've been telling you that I wanted to go to Lisa's place to stay the night all week, dad. We did our nails and everything, see?!" Me and Lisa held out freshly painted nails for him to inspect. We had done them for each other just before we left the loft, mine were bright acidic green, hers dark purple. A little truth gives a stable foundation for a big lie.

"Very pretty… wait no. You've never told me about Lisa before." He rallies, time to crush his counter-offensive.

"I've been telling you about her since January, dad. How I made a new best friend, because me and Emma had a falling out." Taunt and deflect. Pay no attention to the bullfighter, keep your eyes on the red cape.

"When did you and Emma stop being friends?" He's confused, on the back foot, has no idea why he is suddenly the one in the wrong. I bet he's kicking himself for not being there more often for me. Was I going too far? No, it was Dad who was wrong.

"Daaaaaaad! I told you, she got pregnant, and got an abortion. I didn't want to hang around her after that, she kept pressuring me to try doing things I wasn't ready for." Bam! Headfirst into something to be more afraid of: a teenage pregnancy! Such a well crafted lie, I'm brilliant, this whole thing is going so damned well.

Lisa behind me was awestruck, or shell shocked, one of the two.

"Well… um. Okay, just be careful Taylor. The city has gone crazy, and I was worried. You two should stay here tonight, just to be safe." And I had won, ha! I wanted to do a victory dance, it would have to wait.

"Sure thing dad!" I gave him a bright grin. "You don't have work today do you?"

"No, but there are some things I need to… uh, get done. I'll leave you some money for pizza… and be back around five." He was going to talk to Alan, and was bribing me to keep me here.

"Sure, sounds good dad. Me and Lisa can have our music up loud that way. Yay!" Exuberance portrayed, dad made his excuses and was quickly out of our hair.

]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[

"Jesus, Taylor that was brutal." Lisa was sitting on a plastic chair in the basement while I collected my tools. There was only so much I could do without proper specialized equipment, and everything I had spent the first three months with my power making, well it was here. I would need it all to make what I wanted to make next.

"Hey, if it keeps dad off my back, and maybe puts Emma in a rough spot with her parents? Then it will be worth it." I can just imagine dad asking Alan about it and getting her grounded.

"You hurt him quite badly there Taylor, he's…"

"Not a monster? But I am? I'm a monster because I want my dad to actually pay attention to me for once. For wanting things how they were before mom died? Is that it, Lisa?" It was too little, too late. Maybe if he had paid attention… maybe then he would have noticed Emma, fixed things with Alan, stopped me from having a trigger event.

Those weren't tears, it was just my ocular implant playing up.

"Taylor…" she reached out and took my hand. I tried to yank away, but she held tight. "You can't keep holding onto your anger with him, it will eat you up inside. And then all that will be left is a bitter, angry woman taking her hate out upon the world."

"I just… is it too much to ask for your dad to be there when your mom dies, Lisa? Is it too much to expect him to be an adult and take care of me?" I crumpled to the floor sobbing, and Lisa wrapped her arms around me. "I just wanted my daddy."

]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[

"Taylor? Are you… home?" Dad's voice was quiet, I really had hurt him earlier. Lisa had helped though, sitting with me, letting me talk. We'd had pizza and watched stupid movies, and then she had gone back to the loft with my equipment.

"Yeah, I'm in the kitchen dad. We're having lasagna." Okay, Lisa had helped me make it, and that was the only reason it would be edible. But I _had_ done some of the work!

"Oh, you didn't have to cook kiddo." I could hear him pause in stripping off his outer layers out in the hall, so he didn't see my wince. He didn't trust my cooking… fair enough. I hadn't been good at cooking before triggering, and afterwards?

"Lisa helped me make it before she went home." She had wanted to help me and dad reconnect, said I needed it. She wasn't wrong, and I didn't like that. Stupid thinkers.

"Oh, good." The relief in his voice was palpable. Asshole. "So, about Emma. Her parents didn't know, did they?" He had talked with Alan, asked him about Emma, asked about her 'pregnancy'. Had Emma managed to convince him it was a lie?

"No, I don't think she wanted them to know. Why?"

"They… err, are going to be pulling her out of Winslow. They haven't decided where they are going to send her yet, but they were talking about a private girls-only school." Huh? Was it that easy? Dad believed me, and Alan believed dad, and now Emma would be gone? It couldn't be, nothing was this easy. Nothing.

Dad poked his head into the kitchen. "Oh, honey, why are you crying?" I just shook my head and threw myself into his arms, clinging to my daddy, sobbing. He had finally, finally done something to help. Even if it amounted to nothing, even if he hadn't done it intending to help me, it still had helped; it was significantly more than he had done since mom had died.

I was going to decorate the city with Coil's entrails for Lisa. She deserved it.

]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[

Dinner was subdued, but I was happy. Dad had finally acted, he had finally helped me. I didn't know just how badly I needed that until Lisa had come over today. I wonder if I should send Lung a gift basket for helping to introduce us?

Me and dad had talked, and while I didn't tell him everything that Emma had done, I told him enough to make sure he didn't feel bad about getting her in trouble with her parents. I couldn't have this moment spoiled by his guilt after all.

I lay in my own bed for a change, unable to sleep, unwilling to leave. With all my tools at Lisa's it would be impossible to make anything truly worthwhile. I'm sure that, from a purely pragmatic view, this was a wasted night and I would regret it. But I couldn't bring myself to regret something that would make me and dad better, even if it wouldn't last.

Sirens in the distance. Had Bakuda blown something else up? The news was talking all about it, how she had set off a dozen bombs in the city, all with strange and esoteric effects. Without Oni Lee though, each bomb could only be used once.

I sighed, nothing I could do about it tonight.

It was a long time before I fell asleep.

]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[

"Hey Mister H, is Taylor ready?" Lisa was at the door, we had arranged to spend the day together. Dad was under the impression that we would be doing homework and girl talk. I didn't want to worry him, and I had a villain to prepare for.

An idea swirled into my head, a device that I would place under my skull, touching the surface of my brain. It would passively read impulses, converting and then transmitting orders directly to my control unit. A replacement for my glove that couldn't be removed. I would need help to install it, and for that I would need something reliable.

I blinked, realizing that I had been silent too long. "Sorry, yes, just last minute packing then I am good to go." I stuffed the haptic control glove into my bag, covering it in an old shirt. I would need it until I could get the brain implant sorted. If my power had gone out of it's way to push it into my head, then it was clearly important.

Then again, it had fought me dearly when I suggested the external control system in the first place…

I charged down the stairs, the last of my things hanging haphazardly out of the bag I was carrying. "I'll see you this evening, dad." I threw my arms around him, I would make sure I was home tonight. But I needed to get to work, and I couldn't do that here.

We were out the door and bundled into Lisa's banged up, blue convertible in no time at all, both of us eager to get started on the day's projects. "Where did you even get this thing?" I asked. "It's almost older than you are."

"I'll have you know that this car is a full week older than me, thank you very much!" Ha, I bet she had tried to get one that was made on her birthday too, but had failed to find anything closer than this junker.

"And this is the best you can do? What with your… extracurricular activities and all that?"

Her face broke out into a smirk that I could only compare to a fox's when it realized the henhouse was unguarded. "Of course! After all, I spent all my money on you my dear." She put her fist against her heart, miming vulnerability. "Your expensive tastes have left me a pauper, and now I am forced to eat only ramen!"

I laughed and shoved her gently. "Eyes on the road you melodramatic goof." But it was true, she had spent a lot of money on getting the Undersiders to raid the storage facility for me. "But your investment shall be made worthwhile soon, you'll see. You'll all see!" I indulged in a moment of maniacal laughter, knowing that it would be interpreted properly.

"Speaking of, your little friends have been busy. But you didn't tell me that they would steal an entire truck! Brian went crazy when he woke to your raccoons… uh, parking, in the back alley this morning." Oh good, I wasn't sure they would figure out how to hotwire a vehicle.

I clapped, laughing. "What did they bring me?" Oh I couldn't wait to get started.

"No idea! Wanted to leave it as a surprise for you, it seemed like the thing to do." She was right, that was the correct course of action. "But I did notice one box had half a shipping manifest attached to it. Stamped with a crown, you know, Medhall's logo."

"Fucking _score_! Medical equipment? We're going to be set!"

]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[

"Well this isn't a stethoscope." There was a glock in the case. Multiple glocks at that. Why there was a case of pistols and ammo in a shipment to a pharmaceutical company, I had no idea. But whoever was supposed to receive them would be enraged.

Their loss I suppose. And my gain. I'm sure I can figure out how to arm my abominations with this loot.

"This has got to be a Nazi gun, can't be Merchants, and Lung would just not care to hide it." Alec was enraptured by the weapons, and he made a good point. Who else in the bay would ship weapons in. Coil and the Empire, those really were the only options.

"Could they be Coil's," I asked Lisa over my shoulder.

She shook her head, "No, Coil isn't related to Medhall. I'm with Alec. Pretty sure we intercepted a shipment for the Empire." Well, one more angry gang to add to the list. _If_ we got caught. I almost had the full set! That was probably a bad thing, I should be more careful.

At least for a few weeks. I needed to build up my army of monstrosities before I could really afford to collect the full set of Angry Gangs. A damn shame that…

"So we won't tell anyone about this, and they can assume the ABB or the Merchants hit them?" Maybe leave the truck near the docks, and get the utility-raccoons to light it on fire.

"What happened to the driver?" Huh, Alec with another good point.

"No idea, they weren't supposed to be seen, maybe they stole it while he was in a truck stop?" I wish I still had Sir RackUnit, then I could have recorded the footage of their acquisition of the truck. Too late now I suppose, I'll just have to rectify that for future missions. I would make another RackUnit bunny tonight. It shouldn't take long and really he was a necessary safety feature. He would help with command and control for the OniBorg too! Once he was sorted.

"I think the driver escaped, Taylor. You need to get rid of it as soon as possible, and hope like hell the Empire didn't track it here."

"I'll get Tim up into the air, he can provide coverage. Lisa, go and get your laptop, I think I can link it into my network so you can see Tim's feeds." It wouldn't be hard, I just needed to create an implant that would do that, with a network jack for her laptop. Implants didn't _need_ to be installed, right?

I could feel the headache coming on, my power would let me do it, but it didn't like it. Come on power, nobody wants to plug in a literal mouse to make use of my gear! An image for a basic implant that would give Lisa full access to the network came to me, but I shook it away. I doubted she wanted to have half a laptop's worth of equipment hanging out the side of her head.

I looked around the makeshift warehouse, my utility-raccoons were walking about between boxes, doing inventory. One of them had acquired a small lab coat from… somewhere? Thinking about that too hard seemed like it would be a bad idea. One of them seemed to have taken the role of foreman, and was ordering the others around with little squeaks and chitters, the cute little bastard even had a little clipboard that he was recording things on.

I _needed_ more for my army...

"Hey Alec, can you go out and get me a couple of animals? I need to make a few tools and implants and I'm on the clock here." The sooner started, the sooner I'd be able to get back to dad. If I was lucky and got everything I wanted done tonight, then I could remotely connect to my new toys and keep working overnight.

"What's in it for me?" Boy, he was a greedy son of a bitch.

"We can discuss that later if you want, maybe I can make something that will enhance your power? Or I could install a taser gun into your arms. Just point at someone and they'd go down convulsing." I could do a plasma cannon too, but I didn't think I could trust him with that.

"Ha, sounds like fun. Maybe you can give me x-ray vision?"

"Ew. No, you don't get to see through walls, Alec. Just no." I shuddered, I would need to get that thought out of my head before I could shower here.

"Fine, fine, I'll be back soon with some fluffy animals for you to dissect. Ta ta!" Why did he have to be so damned cherry at the idea of me making animals into tools? It was creepy when it wasn't me.

"Make sure you get me a rabbit! I need to fix my server and Sir RackUnit must be resurrected!"

Lisa just stared at me. "Taylor…You don't mean that literally…right? Right?!"

]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[

I jolted out of my fugue, and looked over my latest creation. A duck-surgeon. Okay…Sure, that worked. Well, she would be doing a lot of the automated operations from now on, as well as installing implants in me. I have no idea why Alec came back with a duck, nor where he got her from. It was probably better not to ask.

"I name you… Ducktor Suture." I had given her a full suite of surgical tools, and a small pair of robotic arms. Apparently I had also made her a tiny white cap with a red cross. I hope I won't get sued for that.

"Welcome back, you monster." Alec sounded amused as fuck, was he referencing something?

"I was once told that ducks, among other things, couldn't do surgery. This is no longer the case. Duck-kind shall enter a new era of prosperity under the gentle guidance of Vulture."

"The Doc's not a quack, is it?" Ah puns, exactly no more than one would expect from Alec.

"She's no quack. She's the best trained Duck Surgeon in the world." A fact that, while technically true, was also misleading. She was the best trained surgeon in the world, full stop. My power would provide nothing less than perfection!

The quiet almost-rumble in my mind told me that it agreed with that sentiment.

"For fucks sake, not another one." Lisa had been reading through the shipping manifests found in the truck, probably because her thinker power wanted to know everything. I knew that those manifests would be useless, all paperwork is. Dad had once told me that it was just there to give busy work to bureaucrats so that they wouldn't try to involve themselves in the actually important jobs. I agreed with his sentiment.

"Not another what?" Alec asked, clearly not the sharpest spoon in the blender.

"Another person who enjoys bad puns. Christ, keep up Alec." The exasperation was false, Lisa was just being a dick to Alec.

Ducktor Suture walked past Sir RackUnit II's cage and slipped a piece of lettuce into his cage, both of them oblivious to the byplay. Cute, useful, bunny. I wish I knew why I left him with a stomach instead of giving him a nutrient port…

]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[

"This seems like _such_ a bad idea, even I wouldn't do this." This was probably the first time I had heard Alec being serious, instead of glib or teasing. He was right, it was a bad idea - for a normal person. I was far beyond that now, and I needed to make sure that nobody could take control away from me again. You would _never_ have power over me again Emma.

"What happens if someone steals my glove, or blows off my hand? I need to make sure that I will always be able to control my army." It was the best way forward. I couldn't afford to be disarmed, literally or figuratively. "Fire it up Ducktor."

"Quack." Huh, that wasn't a preprogrammed response. Oh well, surely nothing bad would come of that.

A quick prick of pain in my neck, and then a wave of cold numbing paralysis washed over my body. A tinker invention made possible by some of the precursor chemicals contained in the shipment that had fallen into my lap.

"Oh, fuck no, I am not being here while you do this." Lisa was clearly still traumatized from the other night. It was a shame she had such a poor constitution. Her footsteps on the stairs told me exactly where she had run away.

Alec, on the other hand, had no such compulsion. "Wow, you never get to see this sort of thing normally. People always want to do brain surgery in a sterile environment. And the doctors are all 'No Alec, you can't put string cheese inside his skull', no matter that it'd make the average person more intelligent." Alec was… unique. It was reassuring that he was back to flippant, everything was right with the world again and I knew that Ducktor was doing a good job. It was also strangely nice having someone to share this sort of thing with. Nobody else had ever gotten to see me quite this exposed.

"Sure, but they do have a point. Most doctors don't have access to the level of quality that I can provide. The good Ducktor has a small quantum disruption array that can kill a full one hundred percent of all viruses and microbes. So I am in good hands, better than most."

"Hands might be a bit far, claws or talons is more the look you've created here, Taylor."

"I would shrug, but I currently can't move my arms."

]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[ ]|[

Alec had gotten bored part way through the surgery, apparently my exposed brain wasn't enough for him. And Ducktor Suture was not the most thrilling of conversationalists. I wasn't sure if the initial quacking responses to Alec's comments was a positive sign, but I had chosen to take it as such. Either way, I was left humming the theme song from an eighties cape sit-com for entertainment.

By the time the Ducktor had finished the job and sewn my head shut again, it was starting to get late. With the counteragent to the paralysis applied, I unsteadily climbed the stairs. Still reeling from being under the influence for nearly an hour.

"Well, that was fun." I announced to the room.

"You are finally finished then? I don't need to hide up here any more?" Lisa was looking a little green just at the thought. She really should stop being such a baby, it was only a little blood and gore. Not even half as bad as what was on TV these days.

"Yeah, all linked up. See for yourself." I sent a few mental orders with the new equipment and a pair of my raccoons crawled out from behind the TV.

"Hey! No playing with the cables, I spent a whole ten minutes setting that up!" Sure Alec, you did that, and didn't just con Lisa or Brian into doing it for you.

One of the raccoons used his outrage as a distraction, and jumped at his face. The other swiped his wallet, and ran over to me with his bounty. Ah, the wonders of assuming direct control.

"I have no real limits on distance from these guys now between my new implant and Sir RackUnit II. Plus their escapades get sent directly to my brain now. So we won't have to deal with them stealing a truck from Nazis again."

"Yes, that. What the fuck did I tell you about keeping them out of sight?" Gah, Brian you are such a fucking sissy about this. Just because there are monsters robbing people, doesn't mean they'll pin it on you.

"Look, they didn't get seen." I think. "The truck was practically unmarked, and the Nazi's can't exactly report a stolen shipment of guns now, can they?" Well, they'd report everything else for the insurance claims. They should at least. That was just good business. "Besides, I didn't even know it was a Nazi truck until we got it unpacked."

"Yeah mate, just because the goof accidentally stole from the Nazi's doesn't mean we have to deal with any heat. Think of it as a win for the good guys, and our resident Tinker getting free parts. Better than hitting another PRT honeypot, right?" Alec's grin was wide even as he started to wrestle with the raccoon for his wallet.

"Fucks sake, we can't afford to piss off every gang in town! Please tell me you haven't done anything to get the attention of the Merchants, or Coil's little band of mercenaries?" God he was such a worrywart, you'd think he would be happier about sticking it to some Nazis. Though, fair enough, they would track his family down and do all sorts of nasty crap if they suspected he was involved with robbing them. Nazis weren't exactly known for being able to hold themselves back. For all I knew Brian actually liked his family and was worried instead of just unjustly annoyed at me.

"Don't think so, Skidmark hasn't dropped past today, so we are likely in the clear. I'll get two of the raccoons to drop it off in ABB territory later, have them torch the thing and we can blame it on them." Ah, how nice it was when you could start a race war by simply torching a truck.

"Good, fine. Make sure it won't happen again. We can't have the damned Empire turning up at the loft; or worse, tracking the loss of the shipment to our personal lives." Well fucking duh. Did he think I was an absolute idiot or something?

I absently wiped at the small trickle of blood from the incision just above my ear. That should stop shortly, the serum needed time to work. It was so nice of him to ask about my bleeding head too, real peach you are Brian.

"Right speaking of families, Lisa, are you ready to take me home? I've got to make sure dad doesn't get suspicious." I didn't think I could bullshit him about staying the night again for a little while. I didn't think I wanted to. Plus, tomorrow would be the first day at Winslow without Emma!

It should be downright pleasant, and I could get _so much_ done with my new implant.


End file.
